"Time dos fly too fast"
Lady Elizabeth Delaval
in her poem "Upon the Singing of a Lark" in
Dr
Sara Read's "Menstruation and the
Female Body in Early Modern England," a fount
of learning

This museum collection is "[U]nrivaled. . . . [T]he
best material culture collection on
menstruation in the world."
- Menstruation: A Cultural
History
(Howie, Shail, eds.) This museum, MUM, has
thousands of advertisements and products
concerning menstruation from around the world.

This museum Web site is "a treasure trove of
information." - Kotex, Kleenex, Huggies: Kimberly-Clark and
the Consumer Revolution in American
Business, by Thomas Heinrich and Bob
Batchelor.

Listen (unfortuntely the link is
dead) to MUM director Harry Finley
carry on about men and menstruation, the MUM
museum in his basement, toxic shock, etc., on
the Keeper menstrual cup site. No, they didn't
pay me.

ABOUT MUM (MUseum of Menstruation):
"May God close your
horable museum." From a letter, with
original spelling, to the Museum of
Menstruation, from "Shocked, by women," mailed
from Cheyenne, Wyoming, U.S.A.

Three listeners'
comments (more) from my half-hour
interview with Howard
Stern (here):
° "Get a life, creep."
° "[I] am quite familiar
with the obstacles to a frank and
intelligent discussion of menstruation."
(Nancy Freedman, author of Everything You Must Know
About Tampons, 1981)
° "I was just listening
to your interview with Howard Stern. You
handled yourself very well with him. He
lambastes just about anyone with a peculiar
interest, but you had him very much in
check. I was amazed!"

Googledeclares this site "adult,"not
something a family could look at together
and withdraws the ads it had placed here for
8 years
(December 2011). I need permission
slips from Google employees' mothers
before they peek at this site. NO FAKE SIGNATURES OR I'LL SEND
YOU TO THE PRINCIPAL'S OFFICE!!

"Stick to jock itch
products, buddy." In a commentary
about the museum and its creator in the
defunct Sassy,
an American magazine for teenage girls.

"Terrifically diverse"- The Independent on Sunday
(London, England)

"It's fabulous that
somebody out there is willing to . . . pull
back the curtain." Mona Miller,
national media relations director of the Planned Parenthood
Federation of America, discussing the
museum in The Prince
George's Journal, Maryland, U.S.A.

See
the original
Museum of Menstruation
and reaction
to it and this site................................................................................................................................

Ever wonder what the average
person ate or how she got their
clothing
in an important era of English - and
world - history? And,
of course, what about menstruation and
medicine? (There's a hint that a
special group of women used tampons,
just as stage
performers [and here]
did before commercial tampons.)Dr
Read's book supplies in an easy,
matter-of-fact way - that is,
non-academic way - the countless nuts
and bolts of these women's lives,
often telling what came even earlier.
And of some men's lives, too.Amazon sells only a Kindle edition
($10.99) althoughDr Read sent me a hardbound copy
with a cover price of$39.95 (or £19.99). Google
advertises an ebook for $9.99.
...................................................................
Dear Harry,
I wondered if you might be
interested in putting a link to a song and video
I created 10 months ago, on your
Museum of Menstruation website? It's
called 'Let
it flow' and is a
menstrual positive version of
Disney's 'Let it go' from the very
popular Frozen film. It's not my
finest singing ever, but I believe
the lyrics are strong and the video
powerful. It's proved to be quite
popular on YouTube with almost 3,500
views. You can read the lyrics
here http://redwisdom.co.uk/let-it-flow/
Best wishes,
Karin www.redwisdom.co.uk
...................................................................

Two more pad disposal bags,
from Arizona..........................................................

A Dutch girl chooses o.b
tampons,
probably the first native European
'pon.Ad, 2000............................................................

Period! magazine goes
internationalThe magazine's Paula wrote me,
"In Holland they wondered why every possible
topic has its own magazine, except the one and
only thing that all women have in common.
Exactly: menstruation. The result is Period! A feel-good magazine for
menstrual off-days with new posts almost
daily. A year after the launch of
the Dutch online magazine there’s an international
edition as well: www.period.media."
Read its press release.............................................................

Is she feminine?Ad for Fems
"feminine napkin," 1959............................................................

Are you looking at
the stars? She sees Kotex blue.Kotex ad,
June, 1929............................................................THINX about it!See/buy the pad-in-panty
back ups..............................................................

"I do know this via a close
Japanese friend.
She told me that in the days when
women wore kimono they did not wear
underwear. So what did they do? They
held it in until they went to the
toilet and then let the blood out. She
said it can be learned with practice."But look at ads for Japanese
menstrual clothing in the late
19th to20th centuries when women wore
kimonos.

............................................................

Nothing Modes(s)t about this
user:
Take a relook at a Modess ad
from 1928.
..............................................................

Do you
have a flair for the end?o.b. ad from
Belgium, around 2000........................................................

From
"This Is My Brain on PMS"

"Most of my interpersonal
conflicts happen just before my period
— problems that would arise eventually
anyway, but impaired by PMS, I’m
intolerant. I’m impossible. I pick
fights. I jump to damaging
conclusions. Maybe that’s the worst of
me. Or maybe that’s me. Roseanne Barr
once noted, 'Women complain about PMS,
but I think of it as the only time of
the month when I can be myself.' ”
Read the New
York Times article by Diana Spechler
...............................................................

Can you connect a traffic
jam to menstruation?
Always does in this 1998 Dutch ad...........................................................

I wonder what those women in Nepal
who use a menstrual
hut do when an earthquake
destroys it, don't you?
............................................................

A journalist interviewed me
a couple weeks ago.
It dawned on that I had photos of the
original museum stashed
away so I let her pick 3 to take.
Now I'm going to show
you some of the others.And with an appeal to YOU to start
a new
museum!
............................................

Help a researcher at the
James Joyce Library, University
College, Dublin, help another
researcher look for scholarly or
scientific research on'free flow'
or 'instinctual free flow' or
'le flux instinctif'?(Women have almost certainly menstruated into their clothing
or otherwise freely from the
beginning. And do so today.)He could also mean a woman's
ability to retain her flow until she
finds a toilet or other place to
release it.Can you help or make suggestions?
.......................................................

Flux
instinctif? No way!
A stylish French woman adjusts her
shoe, or something, in an ad for Tampax,
November 1988.
........................................................

The mirror doesn't show the
whole story.Kotex ad,
July, 1925...........................................................

One of the creators of the
birth control pill dies at 91Carl Djerassi, a penniless
(after a New York cabdriver cheated
him and his mother out of their last
$20) Jewish immigrant to America,
wrote
Eleanor Roosevelt for help; she got
him a college scholarship.
"It was a little
help that made a big difference,"
writes
The New York Times about his
many accomplishments.
See an early
example of that pill (1964) in
this museum......................................................

A friend sent a link to an audio
and visual tourthrough the Museum
of Menstruationin my house so
many years ago (mid
1990s).
My computer sound doesn't work so I
can't pass on how articulate (and
informative) I was. I hope I was......................................................

"How
Menstrual Cups Are Changing Lives in
East Africa"Read
the story in the Huffington Post.

21 years ago a writer from Seventeen
magazine attending the
opening of this museum
asked me what I thought was the best
menstruation "removal" technique. I told
her a menstrual
cup.
.........................................................

"Japan charges Tokyo
'vagina artist' with obscenity"
"Correspondents say that opinion is
split in Japan over whether Ms
Igarashi's work is obscene, with some
pointing out that images
of penises are not seen as causing
offence." -BBC.
[Your MUM reddened the words. See related
work on this Web site.]..............................

"Women's age at first
menstrual cycle linked to heart
disease risk ...
"First menstrual cycle at the age of 13
posed the lowest risk of heart disease,
stroke and high blood pressure."
Read the whole ScienceDaily article.........................

A simple
ad for German
Carefree panty pads (1991)
turns out to be not
so simple
with its second page.
...............................................................

What do you know about menstruation and
tampons
in ancient Greece?
That's what I thought.
Greatly expand
that knowledge!
..................................................................

"Why didn't the Great
Creator tweak that whole process a
bit so that nothing is lost?"
A
contribution to Would
you stop menstruating if you could?.................................................................

OMG!
Do these women travel from ad to ad
for different companies?
You witness them betraying
Kotex for Modess!Modess ad,
1934......................................................

I see London, I see France
....
Always pads protect you know
what!Dutch ad, 2002
.............................................

The notice of the 1971 annual
meeting of shareholders
where it's proposed to change the name
to
Tassaway, Inc., just in time
for the menstrual
cup company to fail!......................................................

The book is a torrent of
information, unique,
about
menstrual activism.
The author inscribed the copy she sent
me, in part,
"For Harry, .... a rebel, & an
inspiration to us all!
THANK YOU!"
Dr. Bobel is the incoming president of
theSociety
for Menstrual Cycle Research.
............................................................

Lost but now found:
A friend send me the link
to the Roadside
America page
about this museum when it was
open in my house.See the video and photos!.........................................................

Like, this is a really short
letter, isn't it?
Mrs. Chalmers did
fill in the center to goad women
into
buying her menstrual
cup.And
on pink paper!..............................................................

The Duchess in the stall:
Judith Thurman writes of the brilliant
fashion designer Charles James
and photographer Cecil Beaton
and the Modess
.... because (bottom of page)
ads
of mid-20th century America
in The New Yorker, 5
May 2014.NEWS
FLASH!:
Read about and see
pictures of the
Metropolitan Museum's
exhibit of
James's dresses.
.............................................

What was at The World's
Busiest Corner in the
1920s?
No, no, it looks like a tombstone
for the traffic dead but isn't.
It was a Kotex display! Well,
next to it.
See a kind of proof.
................................................................

Are you a smart, beautiful
woman?Bright, full of life?Then you mustn't have a care in the
world!
Um, right.
Anyway, Venus pads are - er, were
- for you!Ad, 1931...........................................................

Guys, want to "experience"
menstruation? No? Darn it, I was
hoping you would say Yes.Go ahead, experience it (at
second, third or fourth hand) with the
Menstruation
Machine!President elect of the Society
for Menstrual Cycle Research
Dr. Christina Bobel, chair of women's
and gender studies
at the University of Massachusetts,
Boston,sent me the link to her debate
at New York's Museum of Modern Art
about whether such empathy (even with
this machine) is possible.
I left my 1.5 cent's worth of comment
on that site.
She also reminds us thatMenstrual
Hygiene Day is right around the
corner (28 May).
(See
the great
series of photos by
Navesh Chitrakar of
having to use a
menstrual hut -
start here. See
also hygiene
efforts in India.)
And Representative Carolyn Maloney
reintroduces her effort to push
Congress to investigate
toxic shock syndrome and the
safety of menstrual products
with the The Robin Danielson
Act.
Read David Linton's discussion.
............................................................................

"Me?
Part of the 99%??
DAHling!"Ad for
Kotex, 1939..................................................................

Don't you
think it's cool that a happy little
man would give you a
"thumbs up" for using his
disposal bag correctly?And he's, like, standing right
next to you!!!
In the stall!!!
And winking!!!7 more pad
disposal bags from the Director
of
the Centre for Digital Humanities at
University College London,
Professor Melissa Terras.
...................................................................

Would you pole
vault for a flexible Modess
tampon?
Actually, she's grabbing an inflexible
fountain pen,
of all things.You don't know what a
fountain pen is?!! OMG!!!Like, both star
in her newspaper ad, 30
November, 1956!!!
.........................................................

14-year-old Uttara
Saud sits in a menstrual hut
in Nepalduring her period, below.See the great
series of photos by Navesh
Chitrakar
(start here)in the Frankfurter Allgemeine
Zeitung,
one of Germany's best newspapers.I
translated the 19 photo captions
into English here.

A
section of a photo by Navesh
Chitrakar................................

From the article:
"There are also myths and fears
surrounding the use of sanitary pads [in
India] - that women who use them will go
blind, for example, or will never get
married."See some other current
Indian menstrual practices.
........................................................................

"Ovulation
motivates women to outdo other women,
research shows"
Read the story..............

A contribution toWords and
expressions for menstruation:
U.S.A.:Flying her
colorswith a scan of the part of the
letter to a soldier in Europe
that contained it, June 25, 1944............................................................

O
dulcet breeze from the Indian
Ocean!!! O crashing surf!!!O
- Oh, wait!!! That was
a tampon wrapperripping
open!A menstrual
pad disposal wrapper from
England ...
and yet another one! Both from
the learned Director of
University College London Centre for
Digital Humanities and Professor of
Digital Humanities, UCL.
..............................................................................................

I am transcribing a series of diaries from the 1890s well into the 20th century. In these diaries the women refer to getting their period as the C. R. C. (or CRC or C R
C) called.
I would like to know what C R C stands for.

Do you want to cause a fuss?
American Apparel sells a T-shirt "with
a simplistic line drawing
depicting a masturbating,
menstruating woman with pubic hair."
The writer misuses the pejorative word
"simplistic" - he should have said
"simple" - and talks with the artist,
Petra Collins, about
the shirt. He makes the point that
pictures of people killing one another
are accepted and common in America but
not menstruation. But for the past 15
years you could see related depictions
on this site.
By the way, during a nationwide tour
related to women's health in the early
2000s one venue (I think the Maryland
Science Center in Baltimore) put walls
around the section containing the puberty booklets
I lent to the exhibit.
I know what a fuss is. (Photo
from American Apparel)

"The
Happy Baby"
Pamphlet from the Lydia Pinkham drug
mill, 1920s-1930s.
I'm glad the baby's still happy
because ....
... imagine my unhappiness
when I discovered on
the Web this exact
booklet and article I had
been working so diligently
on the past few days - I had
created and posted itfive years ago! I had
even written similar
commentary and added similar
pictures!Whatever.
I made cosmetic changes to the
article.
That shows the evil of not indexing
articles right after
putting them on MUM. I'm digging
through the server
to find and make available more
forgotten articles.Do you want to see what a wet
basement can doto paper? See this
booklet before and after
5 years.
...................................................................

Indexing's not made easier when
a 24-pound cat called Lunch Boxcan (without a warning meow)
jump from the table behind me and
collide with my lap.OOOOOF, he just did.